by Brian.


It's no surprise that everybody loves horror movies. It's almost scientific how human beings flock to roller coasters in amusement parks and thrillers in the theaters in search of that only completely organic and legal drug: adrenaline. What is surprising, to me at least, is that for as universal appeal as horror film holds, almost no one can make one properly! Think back to the last good horror movie that you saw in a theater. The Blair Witch Project: Sure it was scary the first time but have you seen it recently? The Sixth Sense: Creepy for sure but again, after you watch it the second time to pick out the details, does it really hold?

For me, a scary movie stays scary through time. It seems to me there is no right way to make a scary movie, but there are plenty of wrong ways. Now I have not made a film, nor have I sold a script to Hollywood, but I have watched a fair amount of these late-night delights. So, in an effort to establish a few ground rules on the subject of horror, as well as spurn discussion between those interested and hopefully give advice to any thinking of helming a scary movie anytime soon, I've outlined a few key notes that I believe are vitally important to a successful scare.

It should be noted that this originated as an e-mail so if this seems all-to-familiar (especially if the original recipient reads this!), I am indeed borrowing from several "tried and true" conventions in my remarks. Hey, they're cinematic rules because they work.

So you want to make a scary movie:

-Shoot in black and white. Horror is not exactly dependant on realism, so if you don't have the budget for a good DP or some serious mastery of color, don't worry about it. For as many great horror films shot in color, there are just as many in black and white. Besides, in most color horror flicks (with exception to The Shining, Suspiria, and a few others who use color as effectively), the color is incidental. Black and white is making a comeback, so if you're an Indy filmmaker looking to make something scary, save your money on color film and use it on lights instead.

-Less is more when it comes to lighting. This is not to mean one sun reflector or dinky inky will do, competent lighting is essential for horror, since a large part of mood and tone is most effective if showcased in the visual. What I do mean by this comment is do not be afraid by shadows. It's pretty exciting how little light you need to get your point across effectively. If you're unsure of what I mean, go rent some work by Gregg Toland (The Long Voyage Home, Citizen Kane) and John Alton (The Big Combo, T-Men).

-Horror doesn't need camera movement. Everyone has seen Evil Dead and loved it, but we must realize that although the 2x4 Cam helped out Sam Raimi and the Coens in their early careers, there have been plenty of classic horror films that never move the camera. Of course this is all in the area of personal taste, but some say if you have a completely and utterly horrific scene, all you need to do is show it.

-Dream/nightmare sequences never hurt. What better way to distort reality, get away with showing random horrific images, and flourishing the psyche of the character at the same time? Within a dream there are no limits, so the only boundaries are that of your imagination. It's surprising how much you can put on screen if you later tell the audience that it didn't really happen (or did it?). Rosemary's Baby and Prince of Darkness both have great examples.

-Gore is overrated. Ok, in the 70s when no one had ever seen such grotesque horror before, Gore was great. Nowadays however, we've seen it all, and continue to see more every night on the News. Simply stated: it isn't scary anymore. Repulsing? maybe. Scary? Nope. Don't rely on the decapitations or spears through the heart for your screams, you're more likely to get squirms instead. Gore and make-up effects also have a tendency to date badly, which will undoubtedly turn your movie from the milk of terror into the cheese of camp.

Now, as a writer, here are my tips on writing a good horror movie:

-Don't worry with the above pieces of advice. Those have nothing to do with your current job, worry about that after the script is done and you're directing it.

-Flesh out your characters. The key to keeping your story out of cheese or camp is not in how you tell the ghost story but whom you're telling the ghost story through. The big reason why The Shining works on the story level is that Jack is a recovering drunk and the kid is psychic. It's not until the house lets him out of the freezer that we know for sure whether he's seeing ghosts or just plain going crazy. If you give your story a character angle, like The Sixth sense did, it will make the ghost story more surprising and horrifying.

-Show don't tell, and take your time. Yes you have a scary idea, but if you just put your ghost in the middle of the room in act one, you get one scream then two acts of boredom. Be subtle about it, tease your audience, don't show them everything until they just can't stand it anymore. The Blair Witch Project got all the hype because it didn't show anything (unless you were quick enough to catch the guy standing in the corner at the end), but the remakes of The Haunting and House on Haunted Hill both cheesed out their audiences by showing too much. They were both cool in the beginning, but those guys didn't realize that they didn't need some super-mega-evil force to manifest itself at the end and totally blow off any realism left in audiences. Somewhere in the middle of the scale should work best. The site of a ghostly frozen kid is terrifying! People don't need any more than that... but you've got to make that site the climax, not the inciting event.

-Don't worry about making sense. Horror is much more about tone and mood than plot or logic. No one knows why the dead walked the earth in Night of the Living Dead. No one knows why leatherface wore a mask of human flesh. If you have an idea for some random twisted violence, physical or psychological, don't sweat how to work it into the story. Horror is like comedy: if it makes people laugh/scream, your job is done.

-Simplicity is key. People don't need the intricate mystery plots or hi-tech Bond-ian schemes in a scary movie. A MacGuffin is enough to get out of plot territory and into the fields of horror. If you have a good idea about a ghost, don't bother us with flashbacks about how the ghost died or why he's haunting wherever he's haunting, let us figure it out through your story. Unless it deals with character, don't clutter your script with how the hauntee comes to live in the house. The people that moved into The Amityville Horror just moved there... we don't care why.

Here are a few examples of what I'd say makes good horror:

The Shining: Largely psychological... some say Jack goes crazy too early... I don't think so. I just think he's a troubled dude. Here contains great dream sequences, great buildup, all on a very small scale. Three principles, a haunted house, and rooms filled with horror.

Jacob's Ladder: I'm not sure I like the whole its-all-in-your-head ending to this one but the way they escalate the horror is unbeatable. Starting very, very subtly with a tail in a subway or a guy with a plastic bag over his head in the back seat of a car and rising all the way up to the hell/hospital with midgets in cages overhead and a surgeon with no eyes trying to get to my pineal gland the hard way. Does it necessarily make sense? Nope. Is it scary? Hell yeah.

Poltergeist: A Classic Ghost story. It's very David Lynch-ian how we start off with a perfect suburban neighborhood and slowly get to the point where the house implodes and fire streaks out of the hydrants. The big thing here is believability. THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!

Suspiria: A little Italian in your diet is good. This one has a simple premise: witches are in a boarding school. However, the way Argento tells it puts you on the brink of earthly destruction. The whole film achieves a nightmarish quality, from the music to the color palate to the acting. Genius.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Not exactly subtle but you can't deny the unabated horror of the imagery involved. My favorite scene is the very first, with the medical photos being taken while the radio reports the stolen corpses.

One might note that all of these examples not exactly recent. That's simply because I don't think we've made decent horror in a long, long time. Scream was more of a caricature of the form, and others have maybe come close but chose to veer off into different genres. There's still hope however. If Rob Zombie can release his House of 1,000 Corpses, his Everyday-is-Halloween persona alone lends one to believe that he can tell a devastatingly scary story.


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